Ailey Dancers` `Magic Of Katherine Dunham` Comes Alive

April 14, 1988|By Richard Christiansen, Entertainment editor.

There was much exuberant dancing on the stage of the Auditorium Theatre Wednesday night by members of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre for their evening-long revue on ``The Magic of Katherine Dunham.`` But none received more applause than Dunham herself when the Chicago-born choreographer, now in her 70s, joined the dancers on stage for their curtain calls, blew a few kisses to the audience, lifted her green and gold gown and, for just a few seconds, began to hop and sway to the rhythms of the dances she had created and performed so many years ago.

The Ailey retrospective, split into three acts that show Dunham`s popular work in theatricalizing Afro-American dances, is not a complete view of her career, which flourished in the 1940s and 1950s. But it does convey the flash and drama of her choreography; and it is performed with great zest by the Ailey dancers, who are heirs of the dance theater Dunham pioneered in this country.

`Magic of Katherine Dunham`

A program of dances by Katherine Dunham, with sets by Randy Barcelo and costumes by Toni Leslie James based on the originals by John Pratt. Lighting by Tim Hunter; conductor, Tania Leon. Presented by the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre in the Auditorium Theatre, 50 E. Congress Pkwy. Opened April 13 and plays again at 8 p.m. Thursday and Friday. Length of performance: 2:45. Tickets are $5 to $22.50. Call 922-2110.

Ailey and his associates, with Dunham`s help, have restored the dances and put together the program with skill and style. Working from the original costumes and decor of John Pratt, Dunham`s husband, they have used theatrical draw curtains to frame the settings and they have filled the stage with a mass of bright, fresh, exotic costumes. Tim Hunter`s lighting also helps evoke the atmosphere of movie musicals, vaudeville theaters and nightclubs in which Dunham and her troupe performed.

The evening begins with the tall, stately Leonard Meek, in white tights, standing at a ballet barre and flanked by two couples.

Together, they stretch their bodies into some of the distinctive poses of the Dunham style, accompanied by a recording of Tomaso Albinoni`s Adagio for Strings and Organ.

The whole company then criss-crosses the stage in a percussive progression of steps illustrating the Dunham technique. The quick steps, the shimmies, the high jumps and the characteristic patterns of black American folk dances that Dunham studied and refined with her own technique explode in one wave after another of Ailey dancers.

Thereafter, the first act focuses on Dunham`s Afro-Caribbean mode, showing a lively Brazilian quadrille in ``Choros`` (1943), proceeding to the humorous sketch of ``Los Indios`` (1941) for two old crones and a sprightly flute player, and climaxing with ``Shango`` (1945), depicting a rousing religious ritual of spiritual possession.

The complete second act, performed to a taped score by Robert Sanders, is devoted to Dunham`s 1937 ``L`Ag`ya,`` a three-scene dance drama set in Martinique that tells of a villainous interloper who uses a potent love charm he has obtained from an evil zombie king to lure the woman he desires from her beloved.

The dance features stiff-legged zombies who rise from the ground of their foggy graveyard, a cackling witch doctor, vigorous folk dances and a frenzied, erotic striptease by the elegant April Berry as the woman captivated by the love charm.

The final third of the program is an ``Americana Suite,`` again performed to taped music. It contains square dances (with Dunham`s voice making the calls), some spirituals (in which the dance forecasts Ailey`s own masterpiece ``Revelations``), a ``Flaming Youth`` Chicago nightclub scene with the Charleston and Black Bottom, a slinky ``Barrelhouse`` duet by Renee Robinson and Andre Tyson, and an everybody-on-stage ``Cakewalk,`` with the ladies in pink gowns and the gentlemen in tuxedoes stepping high to the ``Dark Town Strutter`s Ball.``

It`s a rich, full evening, not always of great dance, but ever entertaining and invigorating. It will be repeated Thursday and Friday.